How Neil Patrick Harris, Darren Star & More Brought Uncoupled to Life

With the help of Netflix, Neil Patrick Harris just blessed us with Uncoupled, the cute, messy, sexy, drama-filled gay romantic comedy series we've been wanting for ages now!

Created by Sex and the City and Emily In Paris mastermind Darren Star alongside Jeffrey Richman, Uncoupled is a much-needed queer, rom-com set in the Big Apple that tells the story of a gay man of a certain age having to deal with the harsh reality of being single after many years of being in a long-term, monogamous relationship.

"Michael Lawson (Neil Patrick Harris) seems to have it all figured out," the show's official description reads. "He's a successful New York City real estate agent with a great career, a supportive family, close friends, and a loving relationship with his partner of 17 years, Colin (Tuc Watkins). But when Colin unexpectedly moves out on the eve of his 50th birthday, Michael is completely blindsided. Overnight, he has to confront two nightmares: losing the man he thought was his soulmate, and suddenly finding himself a single gay man in his mid-forties in New York City."

Besides NPH (the Emmy- and Tony- winner known best for his roles in projects like Hedwig and the Angry Inch and How I Met Your Mother) the series also stars Tisha Campbell, Brooks Ashmanskas, Emerson Brooks, Tuc Watkins, and Marcia Gay Harden.

And Out got the chance to speak with Uncoupled's cast and creators to learn a little more about the evolution and importance of the show!

"I liked playing Michael, yeah, very much," Harris told Out about getting to play a fun main character with a chaotic, messy life like Michael's. "I find the messiness the most fun to play because it's nuanced and I think everyone's messy. I like how he's positioned within the show as well. He's in New York City, which is a fairly messy town where everyone has to posit that they're a certain person, that they're ballers, that they're working hard. He's a real estate agent. You have to meet people you've never met, act like everything's good, show things around as this is the only place that you can get. So you're hiding your actual emotions."

He continued:

"He's in a 17-year relationship with someone who he's really into, but he doesn't have to really be himself too much. They're in routine and they have their routine. And so he's not really revealing himself very much. So all of a sudden, everything is taken away relationship-wise and he has to struggle in every other way. And I think that sounds like a really heavy show. And in turn, it's Darren Star, and so it's kind of got a Sex in the City, Emily in Paris vibe to it, but it's like a breakup show. The comedy end of it makes me, as an audience, feel like I can engage more. And then the emotional stuff that happens, I can connect to it in my own specific ways."

"I think it's just a human story," Richman told Out about crafting the series with a gay male lead alongside Star. "We happen to be gay and so we created a romantic comedy with a gay lead, but the gist of the story is it's a human being that's going through a very traumatic event and trying to put his life back together over eight episodes. And I think that's just a relatable, universal situation."

"I think the audience is out there just to want to see this story, a big mainstream audience, not just a niche, not just a gay audience, but we wanted to make the show feel like his life and his issues are universal in that everybody, gay or straight, male or female, is gonna relate to his emotional journey," Star added. "Neil Patrick Harris is such an actor that people love to watch, and hopefully, they're gonna come see him in this. And I think it transcends the idea of being a gay show or a straight show. It's a show about this character."

Uncoupled is now streaming on Netflix.

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